


In A Year Or So

by Oyakata_Manya



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Character Study, Creepy Overtones, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Growth Stunt, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, I never get tired of using that tag do I, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Kureno-centric, Overall Just Pretty Damn Grim, Religious Themes, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, as well as, guilt complex, headcanons, unhealthy thought processes, yet another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 22:27:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20646689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyakata_Manya/pseuds/Oyakata_Manya
Summary: Let the seasons begin...!





	In A Year Or So

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary are lyrics from the songs ‘Nantes’ and ‘Eliphant Gun’ by Beirut. I think they captured the feeling of sad acceptance quite well. 
> 
> Speaking of sad, this is some grim shit. There aren’t a lot of characters I feel are pitiful, but Kureno’s one of them. He might not be entirely in-character in this, but I wanted to try to get to the core of him here.

It is newly winter and the Sohma estate is quiet, cool and buried under a thick blanket of glimmering white snow. The first snow of the season, in fact. 

Kureno rubs his chubby, mitten-clad hands together and cups them over his face, blowing a puff of hot air to warm them. It isn’t that he doesn’t like winter, necessarily, but if it were up to him, he’d much rather spend it _inside_, curled up snug in a sweater with a mug of sweet hot tea and one of Shigure’s old picture books open in his lap. 

But he isn’t. Instead, he’s out here, dresses like a little Eskimo boy in three coats and wading through snow half as tall as him. 

He sighs. 

Speaking of Shigure, it was the Dog himself who proposed they venture out on such a snowy day. “For Akito’s sake,” he’d said with grand gusteau. “She’s never seen snow before. It’s up to _me_ to show it to her!”

If Kureno is being serious, though, he’s pretty sure Shigure had only wanted an excuse to go out and play. 

But that’s alright. 

Kureno _likes_ Shigure. They’ve been friends for a few years now, and Kureno feels lucky and glad that the two of them ever got a chance to meet. Sure, the older boy’s been a little weird ever since Akito’s birth, but he’s still cool and funny, and really great to play with. 

Really, he’s really lucky. 

He won’t go and join them, though; them being Shigure, who’s only wearing one coat on top of a house kimono like some kind of cold-resistant _alien_, and little Akito, cradled in his arms, swaddled in blankets and chirping gleefully as she’s rocked in circles. 

“Winter, Akito-chan,” Shigure coos to her gently, gesturing by leaning her towards the ground, laden with snow. The little girl sticks one of her plump little arms out, groping at the powdery white. She screeches with delight and Shigure laughs, hugs her closer, and says, “Yes, this is snow. Isn’t it pretty? Just like you.”

Kureno swallows thickly, and turns his head away. 

It feels wrong to watch them, just like it does to watch his parents kiss, or to listen to household hands when they’re discussing important business. Like he doesn’t have the right to see. 

But he can’t get his little God’s happy laughter out of his head. 

He likes Akito well enough, sure. About as well as anyone can like a six-month-old baby, that doesn’t do much else other than crying and pooping and generally making a mess. He knows she’s God, somewhere in there, and he knows that God has power. He remembers first seeing her little form, pink and pure, and weeping for her. He remembers what Shigure was like before the lot of them shared her dream. 

He wonders, absentmindedly, if she brought about some change in him, too. 

But he doesn’t have much time to dwell on the matter, because soon Shigure is stomping through the thick snow towards him, and Kureno notes that his nose and ears are beet red with cold. 

“Hey,” He grunts out, and his voice is a bit scratchy now. “I think it’s time we go inside. That okay with you?”

Kureno nods hesitantly, and then looks to the little bundle in Shigure’s arms. His coat is open and he’s got her nestled inside close to his chest. Kureno can see the tops of her little ears under her tuft of dark hair, and notes that they too, are red. 

Shigure makes to walk past him, ready to go inside and get out of this cold. 

But Kureno thinks of that lilting little laughter, and those flushed red ears, and says abruptly, before his mind can put a stop to his mouth, “W-wait.”

The Dog pauses, turns and looks at him incredulously. Kureno swallows. 

“Um, c-can I hold her?”

Shigure blanches, but covers it up quickly with an expression of thought. Kureno thinks he can almost see the gears turning in Shigure’s head, and he wonders why he even has to think about it so much. Is it because Kureno’s younger. That must be it, but he swears he’s old enough to hold a baby. 

Finally, a blank expression settles on the other boy’s face. He holds the little girl out to Kureno, and says, “Okay. Be careful though.”

Kureno grabs the little girl with trepidation. He doesn’t want to hurt her, or for her to start crying. But she settles in his arms easily, sweet and at peace in the arms of her Rooster. 

“Careful not to drop her,” Shigure tells him, keeping an eye on the pair even as he begins to walk inside. 

The younger boy nods, and steps forward just once before the little girl in his arms springs to life, chirping happily at him and reaching tiny arms up to grab at his face. 

“A-Akito-san!” He says to her brightly, and suddenly, overcome with a joy from inside of him—that she would be so pleased to be so close to him…!—and he looks expectantly at Shigure, hoping he might give him some hints as to what to do with the baby. 

But Shigure doesn’t. His expression is unreadable save for a startled look in his eyes. He flinches at the sound of their little God’s joy, and Kureno’s good mood takes pause. It is as though Shigure has suddenly been shot. 

Lo and in his arms lies the smoking gun. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It is finally spring, bright and warm, and the gleaming sun is shining down on the world like it deserves its happiness. 

The day is perfectly beautiful, and Kureno has felt the Rooster leave him. 

It had come as a shock; only moments prior, while he was sitting in the middle of his classroom. The teacher had been presently stood up near the chalkboard, discussing something or other of little importance, and right then, right there, Kureno was only half the being he’d been before. 

It was a strange and surreal sensation; there was no preamble, and then suddenly he was less than he was. No longer the Rooster, and no longer anything at all—it was nearly a death in its entirety. 

A half-death?

And he had wept then and there, as his teacher drawled on and his classmates faded away, merely he turned away from them, looked out the window to the sparrows returning from their winter migration, and mourned the loss of something true. 

What would happen to him then? For himself to have no value in the Juunishi, not in the Sohma clan—what would be done to him then? Would they give him death?

A lilting death?

But perhaps a death in halves might not be so bad, because he will die and he will burn out, and at last he will be _human_. 

Yes, and finally _free_, like a bird. A bird should now freedom better than anyone. 

And so his tears did stop and his sorrow did melt away, and he returned to the Sohma estate that afternoon donning a happy liberation deep within his bones. 

And here is where is all comes to close at the present:

As soon as Kureno enters the Sohma house chaos breaks out; the maids and hands are fluttering and flitting about, and somewhere someone is _screaming_. It’s an awful, piercing sound, shrill and glass-shattering. It tears down his calm and acceptance like it’s tearing down walls, puts in on edge. 

“Akito-sama!” Some tells desperately, and then suddenly Akito herself is there, in front of him, running down the hall towards him, crying in hysterics. 

She latches onto the fabric of Kureno’s gakuran in desperation and jerks him violently towards a nearby room. He can already read her livid expression even through her thick heavy bangs. It is that look that digs the weight of this situation into his mind like a realization; something _irreversible _has happened. 

She pushes him inside of the room callously—Akito possesses shocking strength for such a small and frail girl—and demands to the maids that have swarmed them, “Don’t come over here! Because I say so, no one can come!” If anyone does, I’ll kill them!” And then, once more, violently for emphasis, “_I’ll kill them!_”

Akito slams the door in front of shocked faces, and then the two of them are frozen in thick silence. 

She stands by the doors, hunched over like she’s sick and she’s mumbling, a mantra that crescendos louder and louder until he can make it out; “Why, why, why…” she says, her last legs of life. “Why was it broken?!”

“I-It was sudden,” he stutters, once again a nervous little boy in front of his God. “I don’t really know what happened… ”

She turns slowly, faces him and glares into him. “That look,” she steps forward, a girl possessed, “You’ve had that look for a while. So distant…”

And then suddenly, violently, Akito grabs for him like a lifeline, as though she is drowning. She says, “That you would look at me so distantly—_I hate it!_”

With a desperation unlike anything Kureno has ever faced, she shrieks, “Don’t go!” Like a banshee, “Don’t go! Don’t go anywhere! Don’t ever leave me! Stay by my side _forever!_”

She is crying, and unbeknownst to him, he is too. It is heartbreaking, a crushing burden, when she begs him, “_Don’t leave me!_”

Akito repeats it faintly “I beg you… don’t leave me…” and collapses, a sobbing heap in his lap, and what is there that he can do; what left has he to possibly do than obey?

And Kureno does. He embraces her tightly, whispers like a God breathing life into the shell of her ear, “I promise, I will not leave your side.” 

She looks up at him, smiles and says, “That’s what I thought!” but the tears flowing down her face don’t dare cease. 

That night, she offers him her virginity—as though it is any consolation for the price of his freedom. He beds her, and when she wraps herself tightly around him and he is buried deep inside her body, Kureno likens it in his mind to being trapped within a cage. 

She gasps for him, climaxes with a cry of his name, and he feels dirty and sullied; he is a cruel child, that he would tarnish another in tar. 

All this for the sake of her happiness. 

Kureno lies in their bedding, awake in the dark, and though he is no longer the Rooster, he is no longer human, either. 

He is something much deeper, much darker, than that. 

* * *

  
  
  


It is midsummer, and the air is blisteringly humid and hot even inside the confines of the Sohma inner house. 

Not that many are even around to experience it; during this time of year, the popular idea is to take off to somewhere sunny and bright, and less sweltering overall. 

But Akito won’t go. And so naturally, neither does Kureno. 

He doesn’t mind the heat all that much. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but it’s not as cumbersome as cold, and if he dresses lightly enough he’s not particularly bothered, unlike certain _someones_.

Akito hates summer with a passion, _that _she’s made perfectly clear time and again. “It’s horrible,” she’d say, gesturing to the air about them. “Just absolutely horrible. The heat is disgusting, and the humidity is pilfering. It makes me so sick. I don’t understand how _anyone_ could _like _summer.”

And Kureno would laugh, and humor her by saying, “Perhaps no one does. I’ve always preferred winter, myself.” while the fact of the matter is that the changing of the seasons doesn’t matter much to him at all. 

Akito would grumble, maybe something along the lines of “Naturally.” or “It only makes sense, of course.” and she’d cradle her aching head in her arms. 

Though the two of them have many exchanges like this these days, Kureno is always smiling for her. 

But when he sees her every night nauseous and dizzy with her own feverish delusions, he cannot feel anything else towards the girl but pity. 

This, among other things, can bring trouble. 

The vehement sun is finally setting on the Sohma estate and the sweltering heat is finally beginning to cool when he runs into none other than Shigure on the outer halls. 

“Oh,” Kureno says, simply. “Shigure-san. Are you visiting Akito-sama on this day?”

The Dog doesn’t say anything at first, and it makes unease bubble up inside the former Rooster. His relationship with Shigure has become terse and tense over the past couple of years, like the red tie that represented their friendship has been pulled taught to the point of nearly tearing. 

Finally the elder of the two smiles—though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Just leaving, actually.” His voice is a rasp lower when he adds, “I think I’m done here.”

“Oh.” Kureno repeats. He feels a bit dumb, but he’d been positive that was the case. After all, Shigure always spent so much time off-site, what other reason could he possibly be here for? Boldly, he decides to ask. “What were you here for, then? Perhaps to see Haa-san?”

“Not quite.” And it’s spoken quick and sharp, like a bullet. 

Kureno hesitates for a moment. Looks Shigure dead into his unreadable eyes. Much has changed between them. He thinks that he nearly doesn’t know Shigure anymore—and then he is stricken suddenly with the uncertainty whether he _ever _knew anything about the Dog, at all. 

He decides not to push. He gives up and walks forward. So does Shigure. 

And when the they brush by each other, a scent wafts to Kureno’s nose. For the second and two that the men cross paths, he smells sweat, sex, and a tell-tale perfume worn only by a single notorious resident within the house. 

Kureno stops moving abruptly. Something—maybe shock—runs coldly through his body. He begins, almost without thinking, “You’ve—!” and then promptly cuts himself off. The words upnspoken burn in his mouth, but he knows if he speaks them he would be blasphemous. 

He hears Shigure stop walking as well, and tries instead, slowly and carefully, “Akito won’t be happy.”

The older man responds without missing a beat. “I’m not trying to make her happy.”

Kureno doesn’t know what to say. His tongue feels dry and sandy. He swallows thickly. He wants to ask _why_, ask _don’t you love her?_ but that, too, is taboo. 

He says, “Don’t you—don’t you feel guilty at all?”

Shigure turns around, faces him. “Why, Kureno-kun,” He says, and the honorific is a blow to his guts, a sad mockery of the friendship they used to have. “I think that you should be asking yourself, just which of us is the _guilty_ one.”

Shigure gives him a final glare before turning and walking away, and that glare is death. 

* * *

  
  
  


It is early Autumn, though the weather is still uncomfortably hot and bothersome, even indoors. 

The maids and Akito have complained relentlessly regarding the weather; they’ve said it’s awful, unbearable, but the truth is, Kureno doesn’t mind. 

He remembers it had been a terribly warm day when he had sat down for lunch with Arisa Uotani. 

_Ever since I first met you I’ve thought, it was more than coincidence... that you bumped into me._  


_I couldn’t get you out of my mind._  


He agrees incredibly with her sentiment. 

In fact, it’s been an almost constant stream of consciousness—he thinks of her laugh, dreams of her smile, craves her warmth and light. He wants to be swamped in it, be enveloped in it until he is blinded and burned by it; though others may complain about the ungainly brightness, the scorching heat. 

If Kureno’s being frank, it makes him feel a bit crazy; he’s never been so passionate about anything, not once in his life. He isn’t sure what exactly it is about that girl—and such a young girl too, nine years his junior—that causes such fire to churn so deeply within his guts. 

He remembers, distantly, when he was very young, that Shigure described such a feeling, once. 

_“I don’t want it to end. I want it to last forever. I want to give it form, and make it mine.”_  


He’d heard later on, when the Dog had quite boldly stated that the feeling was _love_.

Huh. 

Kureno is not in love. Of this, he is positive. Love is a luxury, something only those pure and without sin can earn and learn and deserve. 

Kureno is sullied, _has_ sullied, and he is certain that he cannot live the sort of life wherein ‘love’ is possible. 

All he can do is atone, atone, atone, and wordlessly beg for forgiveness. 

And Akito somehow forgives him, every time. 

On nights like this, her forgiveness is a physical thing, when she beckons him into her bed and wraps her arms languidly around his broad form. She presses her small face into the crux of his neck and shoulders, and asks him to fuck her. 

He does, pliantly and without argument. Tangles his hands in her short, dark hair and kisses her dangerous and hungry, like a sinner. She grips him tighter when he uses more force, pushes her down hard and aggressive onto the tatami floor. 

“Kureno,” Akito gasps, and his name is a curse, the heavy weight of chains falling from those pale and thin lips. He does what she wants, and buries his hands under her thin kimono, grasping and pulling at different parts of her. Squeezing a breast tight like a forbidden fruit, kicking long legs apart like he’s opening the gates of Hell. 

His head is buzzing, ears full of cotton, when he unceremoniously pushes two fingers into Akito’s slit without any preparation. She yells, Kureno thinks he hears his name again somewhere in there. She wants it rough, likes it when it bleeds. He gives it to her, and he feels nothing. 

Akito pants “Please,” and “no,” and “more;” a whole lot of fodder that means nothing, before she lands on “you too” and gropes for Kureno’s pants. He reads the message, pulls his fingers out with a disgusting _schlick_, grabs and fumbles for his belt buckle. He maneuvers his trousers and his underwear down just enough for his dick to fall out, practically still flaccid. 

Kureno knows she’ll take that personally so before she can notice he wraps a hand around himself and jacks it, stroking quick and brutally dry. 

He watches her as he does it; takes in the peculiar sight she makes. This is the family head, this is God he’s got laid bare on the tatami; stripped pallid and pale, dripping from her slit, all skinny and knobby-kneed; hair stuck to the sweaty skin of her face, her cheeks flushed and eyes glazed over with wanton abandon. 

And then suddenly, the image changes. 

The figure is taller, tanner. Less skin-and-bones and more voluptuous. The hair lengthens, lightens, and the eyes are honey-golden brown. Arisa Uotani lays before him, sweet and slick and ready for loving. And he is so in love. 

“Please, Kureno-san!” She says, desperate for him. 

Kureno hesitates. He wants her terribly, though this is dirty and wrong. But then, he thinks of Akito, remembers his countless sins, and figures that if his God were to smite him for all he’s done, she would’ve done so a long time ago.

He buries himself in deep, right up to the hilt, and his hips pillow against a soft, round buttock. He gasps, fucks sweet and deep. Digs his fingers hard enough to bruise into Arisa Uotani’s wide hips. 

She smiles for him, a happy loll on her face, and cries the wrong name name when they climax together. 

_“Shigure...!”_  


He shakes and quakes in his fading post-orgasm haze; he stares down at the limp and sad body of Akito Sohma, and realizes he’s never come so hard in his life. 

She thanks him. Tells him that she loves him. Kureno might not understand love, but he’s sure this isn’t it. 

* * *

  
  


It is winter again, and a harsh, violent one. The wind cuts through the air like a blade, sharp, cold, and quick. 

Kureno can’t remember the last time he’s experienced winter like this; out in the elements, amongst the people facing the harshness of it. He normally spends his winters inside the Sohma house, locked inside a gilded cage keeping a certain someone company. 

The existence of Tohru Honda changes many things. 

He goes to meet her on a particularly brisk day. The two of them haven’t interacted much but he’s heard through word of mouth the healing powers of this girl. He’s been privy to the changes she’s made, in the other Juunishi and in Akito. 

He wonders what she might have said to him, what she could’ve done for him, had his circumstances been different than what they are. 

They aren’t. This is what it is. 

Kureno Sohma goes to meet Tohru Honda on a particularly brisk day. 

He brings with him the DVD that Momiji’d given him. He brings with him a heaping helping of resolve. 

Maybe it’s a stroke of madness in him when he tells her that his curse is broken. Maybe he’s finally lost his marbles, and that’s why he explains to her why he must stay by Akito’s side. 

Maybe it’s a careless, callous decision he makes to tell Honda, to let her in on the biggest Sohma family secret. Maybe it’s just loose lips that give away the name of Ren Sohma and everything she’s done to the family head. 

Or maybe it’s nothing like that at all. 

He tells Honda that he won’t meet Arisa Uotani anymore. He gives back the DVD, and gives her his reasoning. He says that it’s because this is the path he’s chosen, and maybe he believes such a line because he’s a sad, pathetic person. 

Maybe, maybe. Well. 

For some unfathomable reason, Honda begins to cry. She half-heartedly mumbles, “Kureno-san…” and breaks out into a full-blown sob, collapsing into a heap on the ground. Crushed under the weight of the news, the intensity of these revelations. Or perhaps she feels bad for her friend. 

Kureno says, “Sorry.” and then, “Thank you.” They are the only words he can give her at this moment. 

There’s a freeing sensation he has as he steps away, the cruel words of his actions out in the open. It burns him, but the best things do. 

Kureno lets go. 

He abandons Tohru Honda and abandons his hope alone in the cold, and another year passes by. 

.


End file.
